704: Mailbag 11/4/22

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ Zachera J. J.

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Speaker 2: Zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen in this episode seven hundred and four of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting the mailback questions. This week, I want to.

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00:01:37
Speaker 1: I've said a lot about how.

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Speaker 2: The Falcons are operating offensively, but Chicago's gotten even lower pass rate this season than the Falcons do. They're pacing to have the lowest pass rate of any team by far since twenty eleven.

00:01:50
Speaker 1: They just don't like throwing the ball.

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Speaker 2: They haven't had a single game this year where they had more pass attempts than rush attempts. I don't see how this changes dramatically with Chase Claypool. I do think that we may see a slight bump, but we may not even be able to credit that bump to Claypole himself. Game script can really influence those numbers. Two, let me put it to you this way. On the season, Chicago wide receivers of a sixty five percent target share. They've seen sixty five percent of their team's targets. That's actually well above the league average this year, which is closer to fifty nine to sixty percent. Now, despite this, Bears wide receivers have seen just one hundred and one targets. Their per game numbers are well well below the league average. I mean, the team itself is averaging fewer than twenty targets per game. Just in general, the Bears as a team have seven more targets per game than Cooper Cup. It's really hard for me to think that this is a good thing for someone like Mooney or even Claypole. I think the fit for Claypole is probably better. He's able to get down the field and Justin fields throws at fifteen or more air yards at the highest rate in the league. So we may see more splash plays from Chase Claypole. But Claypole was still maintaining about a seventeen percent target share per game in that Pittsburgh offense. Even if he gets to like a twenty five percent share in Chicago, and that's pretty generous at their current pace, he'd see a dip going from Pittsburgh to Chicago of well over a target per game. With a twenty five percent target chair, the Steelers are generating sixteen more targets per game than the Bears are right now. That's not insignificant, and these targets in Chicago will probably be more efficient targets. The Bears are averaging like a yard and a half more per pass attempt this year than the Steelers are. But let's not sit here and pretend that he's going to the Chiefs. I don't think you're gonna be excited about starting Claypool or Mooney as plug and play guys given this current Bears offense, because this should hurt Mooney's target shair a little bit. Justin fields though, all day, this only makes me feel even more bullish about fields over the next handful of weeks. This as questions from Patreon. It's from Brad.

00:03:56
Speaker 1: It says, hey, JJ, thanks for all the help so far. This year.

00:03:59
Speaker 2: I hope if you and your family had a good Halloween we did. How do you feel about Devonte Adams rest of season? Is he a trade target after his poor performance or should I be scared off? Thanks so, I was close to making Adams a bye this week on the fifteen Transaction Show. What happened in week eight likely won't happen again. Just a thirteen percent target share one catch. He still has a twenty nine percent target share in the season. He's averaged a target share per game prior to last week of well over thirty two percent. His usage is clearly fine. And on the schedule front, the Raiders don't have it that bad long term, short term not the best over the next four weeks. They actually have the worst schedule by my adjusted Fantasy points allowed method for wide receivers. That's because they get the Colts, Broncos, and Seahawks after this week. That's not great, but in the fantasy playoffs and after that stretch, things look a lot better, and matchups only go so far. You want volume and talent first and foremost, and Adams has that. So if you can actually buy low on that perform rmans and if you're looking at the playoffs. He's totally fine if you need a win as soon as possible. He's a little bit iffier after this week because of the schedule, but he should still be fine enough.

00:05:09
Speaker 1: It's DeVante Adams after all.

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Speaker 2: This next question is from Twitter from at SSA Vinnie and it says the outlook for Tony and Pacheco. I think we should be excited about Tony's landing spot overall being traded to the Chiefs. It's hard to envision a better real football fit. The Chiefs will be able to get him in motion, get him the ball in space. That's where Tony does his damage. The problem is, I don't know if we'll see huge production right away. He's more talented than what they have. But a young wide receiver who's still growing with the position getting traded midway through the season. That doesn't scream wide receiver two to me. I think he's worth a dart throw. Yes, don't get me wrong. Like I said, this match is perfect, but temper those expectations. And with Isaiah Pachecko, he's also worth a hold. Pachecko's more of a hole than Tony is. He played more snaps in Clyde Edwards Alair the last time we saw the Chiefs, and he's their best traditional power runner in that backfield. So not only does he have a shot to clean up in garbage time, but as he continues to grow. Remember he's a seventh round rookie, but he could just naturally see more work. And the nice part about Pachecko is that he has some outs. He could take over that backfield naturally or at least see more work, But he also has more upside if either Jerrick McKinnon or Clyde Edwards Alaire get hurt. That's why he's a valuable asset. It may not come to fruition, but Checko may not be anything more than a random fill in from here on out, but he's the kind of running back to have sitting on your bench, especially this time of year. This last question is an email and it says JJ as always amazing work on the pod.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: Thanks.

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Speaker 2: Can you speak to positive playoff schedules by position? I think it would be helpful to start to understand targets when preparing for the playoffs. Thanks John, So I'll talk about the good and the bad. On Wednesday, I published a chart to the late round Fantasy Football Patreon that shows how each position by team stacks up during weeks fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen and adjusted fantasy points allowed, basically what each position's schedule looks like.

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Speaker 1: You can check that out by going.

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Speaker 2: To Lateround dot com, clicking Patreon, and becoming a patron. Some highlights though, San Francisco has three plus matchups for Garoppolo in weeks fifteen through seventeen, and their week sixteen and seventeen games. Those are really good against the Commanders and Raiders. On the flip side, the aforementioned Bears have it really tough. They get the Eagles and the Bills in weeks fifteen and sixteen, then they get the Lions in week seventeen, and there's a very real chance that Joe Mixon is a cell candidate on next week's fifteen Transaction Show, and it's because of their playoff schedule. The Bengals get the Bucks, Patriots, and Bills during weeks fifteen through seventeen. Those are all pretty rough matchups, but on the plus side for running backs Derrick Henry, get ready for that. They get the Chargers and the Texans in weeks fifteen and sixteen, and then the Cowboys in Week seventeen, So those Week fifteen and sixteen games are really really good for Derrick Henry. If he has a bad week this week, he might be a bi low candidate. With tight ends, we really shouldn't worry about schedule that much because those guys don't see a lot of volume. If you have a tight end, who's seeing volume. That's what's most important. And then at defense, I talked about my favorite by defense on the fifteen Transactions episode, which is Baltimore. But you can get more detailed numbers over on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon if you're interested. I obviously can't read the entire table on this podcast because we'd be here for like two hours. This as Christmas from twitters from at al Stoko. It says, are we at the point where Jamal Williams is a start no matter what Swift's status is. Thank you for all the great content and hard.

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Speaker 1: Work, JJ.

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Speaker 2: Jamal Williams should be in fantasy lineups as long as DeAndre Swift is banged up. But I don't think that we can just confidently declare that he's a plug and play starter. With a healthy DeAndre Swift, he's definitely a good player to have on your roster, be a great flex play. But you're saying no matter what here, no matter what DeAndre Swift's status. I think that's a little bit extreme. DeAndre swiftsman banged up. He hasn't played a whole lot of snaps this year, basically since Week one, where he played sixty six percent of Detroit snaps against Philadelphia. That game just happened to be a super high scoring game. Jamal Williams found the end zone twice. That really saved his fantasy day. He had thirty total yards. Otherwise, Williams saw by far his worst running back rush share of the season in that game, to go along with a five percent target share, So his peripherals were unsurprisingly worst when Swift played the most of these played all year, and then Swift hasn't played a ton of snaps since. Williams is someone who has benefited from a couple of things. Number one, Swift's injury, but also Detroit's high scoring contests at home. I mean, there's a very, very very direct correlation between Jamal Williams doing well and the Lions offense playing in shootouts, which has happened a lot this year. There's nothing wrong with it that, but when we see these spiked weeks from Williams, we have to recognize that situation is playing a large role. The lines have played in five games this year out of seven where the game total went over fifty points. In the other two games, Jamal Williams scored six and seven PPR points, and that was without DeAndre Swift. Those types of scoring environments might continue, and we have to be open to that. We have to be open to that idea. But their home games, which is where this has happened most frequently, they're against the Packers, Bills, Jags, Vikings and Bears. From here on out, there are some tough matchups in there, and there are some opponents like the Bears, where there's less of a chance of a true shootout.

00:10:38
Speaker 1: I guess my.

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Speaker 2: Point here is that, yes, Williams is a pretty good fantasy asset. He's seeing goal line work in an offense that's capable of these blow up games. The problem is that it's really hard for us to just definitively say that he's a no doubt starter when Swift returns, that he's a plug and play guy. Because he had his worst usage of the year when Swift played a lot in Week one one, So for now you can keep playing Jamal Williams Swift remains injured. When Swift is fully one hundred percent, and if the Lions use him like he's one hundred percent, which is a big if, then Williams will suffer. There will be less production from Jamal Williams just naturally. So I guess my answer to your question is that, no, I don't think he's a plug and play starter. He's a must start if DeAndre Swift is healthy, but he's definitely a good fantasy asset to have.

00:11:29
Speaker 1: The sess question is from at J Sage two to two to two.

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Speaker 2: It says is Deontay Johnson due for touchdown regression or is his a doc keeping him from the potential of making big plays this year? So I wrote about this in detail in the Late Round Draft guide this year. But regression is different.

00:11:44
Speaker 1: For every player.

00:11:45
Speaker 2: If you and I play golf together and you typically shoot around eighty five, I typically shoot around.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: In ninety, then those are the numbers that we'd expect to regress to.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Right if we had a bad round, we'd expect to get closer to that average. That mean the next time we played, it's no different. In football, Deontay Johnson actually doesn't have that low of an aid DOT this year. It's completely average among high volume wide receivers. The Steelers offense is just absolute trash. They've scored the fewest offensive touchdowns in the league to start the year. So that situation that he's in, where he sees his targets, how frequently he's seeing them in the end zone or in the red zone, all of that plays into what his expected touchdown numbers should be. And considering he's seen production this year but he hasn't scored, his expected touchdowns is not zero. Clearly, the man has three hundred and seventy two receiving yards. Even if he was seeing all of his targets in really bad situations, he would be expected to have more than zero touchdowns. So we need to sort of shift the way that we think about regression. It's not that players won't regress if they have weird usage, it's just the degree in which we should expect that regression to hit Compared to the average player. The Steelers offense is so bad that while Deontay Johnson should score more touchdowns, especially now that Chase Claypole's gone, those opportunities won't be there like they would for the Chiefs or the Bills. If Deontay Johnson were doing this exact same thing in the Bills offense, we would feel a lot better. But yes, he is due for regression. Even in this Steelers environment, he should have probably two or three touchdowns. That's just based on his usage. It's just that if this were a different environment where he was seeing this exact same usage, that number would be even higher. The last question this week is from at Shannon Mack double O seven and it says which Fantasy football relevant player was the biggest winner at the trade deadline? So I'll go through a few speaking of Chase Claypol, Deontay Johnson, and the Steelers. While I do think Claypole being gone can help Johnson, I think the bigger winners are George Pickens and Pat Fryermouth. Claypole leaves behind his seventeen percent target share that's going somewhere. This isn't a vacated targets thing. This is a vacated target share thing, which is very real because target share always adds up to one hundred percent so when a piece of that is gone is going to be filled by someone, and Pickens has more to gain there than Johnson does. Pickens has seen his target share dip the last couple of weeks from fourteen percent to seven and a half percent, so this could be exactly what he needs to get back on track. And with friar Chase Claypole has played seventy nine percent of his snaps from the slot this year, some of those middle of the field looks will be shifted to Friarmuth. Now, Friarmuth has a seventeen percent target share on the season, but without Claypole, I think he can be in like the low twenties.

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Speaker 1: Now that would be huge.

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Speaker 2: So I think Friarmuth and Pickens are the two big winners from Pittsburgh. And I also think that Jeff Wilson is a winner. I alluded to this on the Sleeper Show this week, but Raheem Mostert has been the bell cow for Miami recently. Yes, but the Dolphins don't make this move if they feel totally fine about their backfield. They haven't liked Chase Edmonds, they deal them away and then they add a piece who's a much bigger threat to Raheem Mostert than Edmonds was so yeah about that fifteen transactions recommendation earlier this week about buying Raheem Mostert. I would not be doing that anymore. I got new information. My opinion changed. Wilson has been good when he's got an opportunity. I'm not going to be that surprised if this backfield is more split than people think, and Wilson then has the upside of being that flex option plus a handcuff. If Moster goes down and we know that he hasn't been able to stay healthy throughout his career, then Wilson is the lead back in a good offense. So I think Wilson is a very interesting buy candidate right now because he's cheaper than Raheem Mostert. And then let's look at Nim Hines. Hines gets a bump. He was seeing an eleven percent target here on the season, but he's going to a team that has basically doubled his former team in offensive touchdowns this year. The Bills have clearly been looking for this type of player. They drafted James Cook to be their receiving thread out of the backfield that clearly is not working out, they.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: Don't make this move. They feel good about James Cook.

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Speaker 2: Heines can line up everywhere too, and the Bills haven't found a ton of success from the slot this season, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them get creative with Hines and put him in the slot a little bit. I mean, he's played twenty one percent of his snaps from that area of the field this year. You're really just buying the fact that a competitive team with one of the few elite offenses in the league, they went out and they handpicked Nahim Hines and they traded for him. You can sit there and you can say, but they did this with James Cook and look how that worked out. But here's the difference. We know that Naim Heines is pretty good. We still have no idea with James Cook. He was a prospect. Nahim Heines is a veteran and that's why I think Naim Hines is a winner at the deadline. That's gonna know for today's show, though, Thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football 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. Remember to check out lateround dot com. Otherwise, good luck here in week nine, enjoy your weekend. I'll talk to you next week. He